On yesterday's primary elections

Last night, primaries were held in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Oregon and Arkansas, and the big news were the primary races for the U.S. Senate, especially in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Arkansas.

In Pennsylvania, Democrat Senator Arlen Specter was dealt a defeat by his opponent, Congressman Joe Sestak.  With all but 75 precincts reporting and over a million votes cast, Sestak won by more than 80,000 votes (8 percentage points).  Frankly, it serves Senator Specter right that he lost in the Democrat primary.  The reason he switched from Republican to Democrat in the first place was to avoid losing to the Republican nominee, Pat Toomey (whom he narrowly defeated in 2004), and Congressman Sestak ran a smart primary campaign, hammering away at Specter's switch.  Now, instead of Arlen Specter running for another six years in the Senate, it'll be Sestak vs. Toomey; congratulations to both.


Also in Pennsylvania, a special election for John Murtha's seat was held, with former Murtha aide and Democrat nominee Mark Critz defeated Republican nominee Tim Burns.  The interesting thing about the results is that for a district like Pennsylvania's 12th, where Democrats are said to outnumber Republicans by 2 to 1 in registered voters, to have the Democrat winning by only 8 points (a margin of 10,214 votes in an election where over 134,000 votes were cast) doesn't tell me the Congressman-elect has the seat in the bag.

In Kentucky, Rand Paul, the son of Congressman Ron Paul, decisively defeated Trey Grayson, a candidate regarded as an GOP establishment's choice.  With all but 18 precincts reporting and over 350,000 votes cast, Paul won with nearly 60% of the vote to Grayson's 35% (a margin of over 80,000 as well).  Personally, if I were living in Kentucky, my vote would've likely gone to Rand Paul.  There was also the matter of whether some of Grayson's supporters lied about Paul's stances.  Congratulations to Dr. Paul on his win, and the best to him in the general election.

As for Arkansas, the big news out of there was the Democrat Senate primary between Senator Blanche Lincoln and her two opponents, Bill Halter and D.C. Morrison.  With all but 28 precincts reporting, Senator Lincoln finished first with 145,269 votes, compared to Halter with 138,701 and Morrison with 42,372.  However, because Senator Lincoln finished with only 45% of the vote, a runoff election will be held between her and Halter, who had 43%.  The question now is who will the 42,372 people who voted for D.C. Morrison cast their vote for in the runoff, Senator Lincoln or Bill Halter?  I wouldn't be surprised if Senator Lincoln met the same fate as her colleague, Arlen Specter.